Upcoming Orientation Sessions Designed to Prepare New Students for College Life

Quick Facts

Orientation Session I is from June 22-23, Session II from June 25-26, Session III from June 29-30, Session IV from July 1-2 and Session V from Aug. 19-20. Orientation is a program designed to assist new students and their families in adjusting to life as a Winthrop student.

Orientation 2014

Orientation 2104

ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA - Winthrop University will welcome freshman students during Orientation sessions this summer.

New students entering in the fall are required to attend one of five Orientation sessions offered during this month, July and in August. Family members are encouraged to take advantage of Family Orientation, a program offered concurrently with the first day of each of the student sessions.

Session I is from June 22-23, Session II from June 25-26, Session III from June 29-30, Session IV from July 1-2 and Session V from Aug. 19-20. Transfer students entering Winthrop in the fall may take advantage of Transfer Orientations in August.
Here is the schedule for students and here is the schedule for families.

Orientation is a program designed to assist new students and their families in adjusting to life as a Winthrop student. During Orientation, new students meet current student leaders, receive information on academic expectations and opportunities for involvement, are advised, and register for classes.

Organizer Carrie Whiteside, director of new student and family programs, and the student Orientation staff have designed programs and activities so students will interact with upperclassmen, Orientation faculty mentors, instructors, key campus personnel and each other to build a web of support for their Winthrop experience.

Students also will get an ID made with the use of iris scanners. The technology involves taking a picture of a person’s eyes and using the photograph for future identification.

The freshmen also will receive a copy of the university’s common book for 2015-16, "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls.

It tells of Walls’ nomadic life with parents whose own mental/emotional problems expose their children to poverty, homelessness, hunger, sporadic education, rat-infested dwellings with no plumbing and non-existent health care. Walls’ survival and drive to change her life serves as a model of resilience and an inspiration to overcome hardship.

The book and Orientation will help prepare students for college, according to Whiteside. "Winthrop expects students to undergo transformation as a learner and engage in life in and out of the classroom and the community. It also gives them the opportunity to learn about the responsibilities they will have as a student and become familiar with the place they'll come to call home over the next few years.

A three-person Orientation Leadership Staff will work with Whiteside. They are: Program Coordinator Addie Crawford and Staff Coordinators Aaron Howell and Shanythia Thomas.